When I pull a reading for the collective, I sometimes get a very clear, but confusing message from Spirit. This was one such month. I heard very clearly that December is "The Draft" and yet, I wasn't quite sure what to make of that. It's an everyday word that I associate with both a draft of air, and a military or sports draft.
When I looked up the word I found all the following definitions and it made perfect sense.
Draft: 1.The act of drawing or pulling in a net
2. The act of drinking or inhaling, also the portion drunk or inhaled in one such act
3. The force required to pull a plow
4. A preliminary sketch
5. The act, result, or plan of lengthening or stretching something
6. The act of causing a liquid to come out of a container or source
7. The depth of water a ship draws, especially when loaded
8. A system for or act of selecting individuals
9. An order for the payment of money drawn
10. A current of air in a closed-in space
This makes sense in December because we are working with the card of Temperance and in the season of Sagittarius. The word ‘temperance’ comes from the Latin ‘temperare’ which means ‘to mix’ or ‘to combine in due proportion’.
Temperance is the medicine that teaches us how to portion out the force for a plow to split the soil for seeds. Temperance helps us act by pulling in our metaphorical nets and as we do so, we become load-balanced ships.
Temperance both inspires and grounds us with the knowledge that a sketch is not a skyscraper, but the creation of a tower can't take place without the creativity of the architects' draft.
When we feel like we are trapped in an impossible closed space, Temperance is that current of air to remind us that change is invisibly working around us at all times.
We have been drafted for specific soul work in this lifetime. Temperance is the movement that allows us to stay in alignment with that soul work.
We see in Temperance an angel who is standing both on the land and in the water, an impossibility in the material world without a connection to the divine.
She is simultaneously pouring both in and out, up and down. Her triangle reflects the inner-God from her heart center. Her third eye and cranial chakra are illuminated. In the distance where there were mystical towers before, there now stand practical mountains with a clear middle path.
In the Tarot, we arrive at Temperance after we have worked through Justice and Death. In Justice, we learn to accept what is. In Death, we embrace that our egoic ‘persona’ is neither the entire contents nor the vessel of our selves. In the work of Death we are reborn alongside our own divinity.
It is no surprise then to learn that Sagittarius is the astrological season and symbol of Temperance. Both grounded on Earth and heaven-bound, Sagittarius is both the archer and the arrow.
Despite all this glorious mythic symbolism, Temperance really performs miracles in a mundane fashion. I offer a story from my life as an example.
Decades ago I traveled alone to Croatia. I had an incredible adventure and a wonderful time until I tried to take a bus from a remote national park to the next town. The bus was scheduled to run every 1.5 hours. I arrived early, but 20 minutes after its scheduled arrival, no bus. Finally, after 2 hours of waiting, the bus came and drove right by. I thought I was trapped. I complained to the local hostel, to no avail. I waited again for another 2.5 hours, only to watch the next bus drive by without stopping.
Finally, it dawned on me that I was not in Seattle where buses ran on time, I had traveled across the world for a new experience. I decided to get a meal and give up on the bus. I met new traveling friends, and then returned to the road with a sign I had drawn with the name of the next town, prepared to hitch-hike. The exact moment that I held up my sign, the bus came around the corner and stopped.
This is how Temperance works. Once we have gone as far as our self-will and ego can carry us, and then tried to keep going, finally we may give up to the divine and give into whatever may come. These are the mundane miracles of Temperance.
So how does the medicine of Temperance inform our month of December? Our cards for the month are the Two of Cups Reversed, the Ten of Cups Reversed, and our teacher for the month is the Page of Cups.
The cups are ruled by water and our heart-center. If you find yourself feeling a great deal of emotion this month, be extra gentle in your self-care, tender with your self-talk, and be extra generous with your hydration.
In the Two of Cups, we see two individuals each with one cup. The laurel-garland crowned peaceful maiden has both hands on her cup and both feet planted on the ground. The rose-crowned young man moves gently toward her and reaches forward. The winged lion above unites these separate elements.
Reversed, this card for the month informs us that we have gone as far as we can go in looking to others for our needs to be met, and we have also asked ourselves for as much as we know how to supplant.
It is time to surrender to that angel of Temperance. If you are feeling like the gift of who you are is not being received, if you feel you can't "make" people happy, great news - you're off the hook, it's not your job!
The only love story you need to be living in is the one from the divine that keeps you breathing in your sleep, safe in your body, and free in your imagination. Notice these mundane miracles. Feel the heat that comes from your heart center. Any cry for love is always a call from love.
In the 10 of Cups, we see what we might imagine as the "happily ever after" part of the story for the figures in the 2 of Cups. They look up at the heavens appreciating the divine while children play, enjoying the moment.
Reversed, we are confronted with the reality that we are still very much in the middle of the story. For all of us, Christmas and New Years' celebrations will not be an experience of FOMOs, but rather just more of the year that has been 2020. Why? Temperance.
It's only the linear mind that's in love with endings, and just the ego that wants to be in the center of tidy ones. Temperance supports us in celebrating the minor miracles of simply doing the next right thing, meeting each moment with grace.
Rather than simply saying, "2020 has been a dumpster-fire of a year and I can't wait until it is over," notice the drama in the miracle of how much normalcy has prevailed. As a collective, we have proven ourselves to be enormously resilient. As individuals, we have learned how to be still with ourselves in ways like never before.
Our teacher for this month is The Page of Cups.
Because Temperance indicates our ability to combine structure with freedom, spontaneity with knowledge, I can't imagine a better escort to show us how to move with Temperance.
The Pages are our first "JV" Court Cards. With this Page, we have graduated from the longing in the Ten of Cups for a "ta-dah" moment. Though he is splendidly dressed and certainly has places to go, he has to stop and marvel at this fish which has magically appeared in his cup!
Perhaps at the beginning of this year, you were desperate for everything to go "back to normal." We now see that the gift of this year is that things will never return to the way they were. Systemic racism has been called out and been categorically de-normalized. Our democracy has been tested to its brink and a generation of new participants have become engaged. Workplaces have restructured entirely.
Like our Page, we have emerged into this new evolution with a fish in our cup that we never saw coming.
Again, returning to 'the draft', where can we see that in one motion, we are both pouring down and out while drawing in and up in equal measures. How are we both the archer and the arrow? What is up with the fish in our cup?
What miracles have you accomplished that you perhaps did not credit yourself with because it was just what was called for?
As we move through December, I invite you to examine for yourself, where are you grounded in the everyday realities of your life? Where does the water sit in your cup? Congratulations are in order for whatever fullness you experience.
Now, for the empty space. That is where the fish sits. Though you cannot see the draft of air, where can you experience the imagination of that change? If you have found yourself focused on only drafting plans that are rooted in materials you own, begin to imagine how you can make a financial draft for the materials you dream of.
Ask yourself if you are prepared to ask for help from the divine within you. If you are ready but you have held back, why? If you don't think that you are qualified to ask for that divine integration, allow me to disillusion you - you are.
You have been drafted this month to show up in whatever shape you are in, and the everyday version of that, the Temperance of just being, is the miracle.